“The Lord’s Prayer: Lead Us Not Into Temptation Lord, Take the Lead!”

Sermon: The Lord’s Prayer: Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Lord, Take the Lead!

April 14th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI

Scripture passage: Luke 11:1-11

Today we conclude the sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer with that final line, the final request, “And lead us not into temptation.” Many have wondered, why do we need to pray this? Why did Jesus teach his disciples to ask God not to lead them into temptation? Would God ever lead us to temptation? Christians have wondered about this all the way back to the first believers.
James, Jesus’ brother, became a leader of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death and resurrection. As a leader, he wrote a letter to encourage Christians who were facing some real struggles in living out their faith consistently. It would certainly have been a temptation to compromise on living out Jesus’ teachings when they were being challenged by their neighbors, and by the cultures and governments around them. James begins his letter on the topic of trials and temptation, saying, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything.” He writes, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.” This isn’t random wisdom, but wisdom specifically for temptations and trials. We are to just ask for help and then trust God to be there. James continues on, writing, “Remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.” And he concludes, “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” (Jam.1:2-18, NLT)
So it is NOT God that puts temptations in our way, but there IS a purpose for them (for our growth and maturing), and we are to ASK God for help: Lead us not into temptation. A simple illustration from Max Lucado (The Great House of God, pg.146) may help us best to better understand this request, this prayer. So imagine a parent and a child taking a walk on a wintery day. The parent gives the usual warnings, “Watch out. It’s slippery. Be careful.” But the child is too excited to slow down, hits the first icy patch; up go the feet and down comes the child. The parent rushes over to help the child. After getting up and brushing off, the child then reaches for the parent’s big, strong hand and asks, “Hold my hand; keep me away from the slippery spots. Don’t let me fall again.” Another way of saying, “Lead me not onto the icy patches. Deliver me from danger.”
This is the heart of this petition; a tender request of a child to a parent. ‘Our Father’, we started this prayer. The journey of life has taught us, the walk is too treacherous to make alone. So we place our small hand in God’s large one and say, “Papa, protect us from danger.” And our Father is so willing to comply! Psalm 37 assures us: ‘The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.’
Jesus is teaching this prayer to those who have chosen to be disciples, to be Jesus Followers, God Followers. They want to be faithful, to do their best. From the perspective of a disciple, this request is about not letting us get off track from the high calling God has created us for, the mission and purpose God has given us in this world. We have defined that mission here at FBC as “to worship God and to teach, encourage and practice discipleship.” Jesus, too, wants his disciples to stay focused on their primary work, the things that must be done as God’s Kingdom comes. He knows that our spirits may be willing, but our flesh (our bodies, minds, hearts) are weak.
So what are the temptations that we face? What are the slippery patches, the icy spots, the dangers and snares?
The most obvious temptations have to do with the things that we normally think of as sin or as evil. The temptations of financial fraud, of cheating to get ahead. This might be an extra temptation with tomorrow’s tax deadline. There are the temptations of pornography, or of being unfaithful to a spouse. The temptations to watch all sorts of violence and evil portrayed on our TVs, computers, phones, movies, games. There are the temptations of gossip and criticism, being unloving to a friend. And the temptations of things that can harm our bodies and deaden our souls – alcohol, drugs, overeating, overshopping. These things can do real damage to us and to our loved ones! And while I don’t want to minimize the pull of these temptations or the way these things can derail our lives, I want to instead focus for the next few minutes on temptations that may not be as obvious. In fact, they may not seem wrong at all, they may feel like normal behavior, but they become temptations when they pull us away from our mission in the world, away from the work we’re called to do as Christians, away from our First Love, our first loyalty which is to God.
I’m not sure how much Jesus was tempted by the more obvious sins. The Bible doesn’t share any stories about those, but the Bible does include stories about other ways Jesus was tempted. We know that Jesus faced particular times of temptation at the beginning and the end of his ministry. When Jesus was beginning his mission, he was baptized by John in the Jordan River and then led by the Spirit into the wilderness for a time of testing that included a series of temptations. Then at the end of Jesus’ mission, in the final hours before his arrest and his final suffering, Jesus faced perhaps his greatest temptation. The slippery situation these temptations have in common is the temptation to take the easy way out of a difficult or challenging circumstance. The temptation is to choose a more comfortable option, to avoid risk or suffering.
After fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry and Satan tempts him to simply change some rocks into bread to end the discomfort of hunger. Knowing Jesus’ mission is to bring His Kingdom on earth, Satan tempts Jesus to take a short-cut to being King by offering him the whole world in exchange for Jesus bowing down to worship Satan. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus knows the suffering and pain ahead of him, the coming beatings and crucifixion, and wishes there was another way, an easier way to accomplish God’s mission. “Father, could you take this cup of suffering from me?”
We live in a culture that loves to find the shortcuts, the most efficient way to do things, the easy solutions. We have appliances that chop and mix and knead for us. We have roombas that vacuum our houses all by themselves. We have GPS’s that calculate the shortest route or the quickest route. These don’t seem like sins; they seem normal. Yet how tempted are we to try to do the same in our spiritual lives – to find the short-cuts on the discipleship journey, the easy way to do our daily devotions? There is a website titled twominutedevotions.com. Do we look for the most comfortable way to support people in need, for the least disruptive way to follow Christ?
I watched a short Humankind story video produced by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week. It was a story from back in February, when we were in the depths of our snow and cold and icy patches. A car got stuck while trying to cross a set of railroad tracks in Wauwatosa. Many people were just driving around the car, staying in their comfortable, warm, private spaces, taking the easy way of turning a blind eye to that person’s plight. But then Shenika came down the road, driving her public bus on its regular route, and thought, “Someone needs to help this guy off the tracks. This is dangerous!” Not really knowing what she could do about it, she pulled the bus over, got out and began to hurry over to the car. Of course, there was probably nothing she could do alone to push the car through the piles of snow and off the tracks, but as the passengers in her bus watched her go, several of them were inspired to get up off their comfortable, warm seats and go join her. A few cars stopped behind the bus and other drivers jumped out. In just a few minutes, there was a group mighty enough to free the car and send it on its way.
In this world we often face problems that seem overwhelming or unpleasant. It is tempting to take the easy way out, to avoid any personal risks or personal suffering, to look away and let it be someone else’s problem. Satan would love nothing more than for Christians to give in to those temptations rather than reaching out in love to our neighbors, and speaking out against injustice, and sharing the Good News of Jesus, and seeing the suffering of another and saying, “This is my problem, too! How can I help?”
I’ve thought about this as I reflected on our week of hosting the homeless shelter recently. None of us alone can solve the problem of homelessness, yet together we can take care of a group of guys for a week, and then a few months later we can do it for another week. And together with other churches we can take care of them for several months, and finally with all of us perhaps we can consider the root issues and begin to take on the problems that create and perpetuate homelessness. We raise our voices together and pray, ‘Lord, lead us not into the temptation to simply care for ourselves.’
Of course, there is the peculiar flip-side of the temptation to do too little, which is to try to do too much. When the soldiers finally arrive in the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, Peter is tempted to be the whole army of heaven to protect Jesus. He pulls his sword and slices one guy up the side of his head, taking off his ear. When Jesus needed Peter to be laboring in prayer, Peter was sleeping. When Jesus needed Peter to be still and allow God’s plan to play out, Peter jumped into action. Isn’t it ironic that we can be tempted to do too little as well as be tempted to do too much? God gave us a mission in the world, but created a pattern of work and rest for us to follow. So often we are tempted to work when we should be resting, and then to rest when we should be working! How important it is, then, for us to pray, ‘Lord, take the lead! Hold our hands. Save us from the slippery patches of doing too little or doing too much. Lead us not into temptation.’
There was another temptation Jesus faced as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on the first Palm Sunday. It was the temptation of the cheering crowd of disciples that surrounded him. It seems like such a good thing, a wonderful affirmation of his Kingship, his Goodness, his Love. We all glow when we hear someone praise us or praise our church. It is tempting to make that applause our goal, our mission. Was Jesus tempted to bask in the warmth of the adoring crowds and avoid the final fulfillment of his mission that would cause them to scatter, to hide and to even deny that they knew him? How wonderful for us that he stayed the course, that he took his directives and his sense of purpose and mission and knowledge of who he was from His Father rather than from the cheering crowd!
Jesus knew the weakness of the human heart, our contradictions and our fickleness, our vulnerability to temptations – not just to the things that we know are bad, but also to the things that can seem normal and good. If we are honest, we have to wonder if we are even capable of truly knowing our hearts, of staying loyal to Jesus through thick and thin, of staying the course of this discipleship journey.
Challenges are coming. Palm Sunday and Easter are days on which it feels easy to be a Christian, but there are days in between. There are difficult days ahead. So we must pray, “Father, take the lead! Keep us focused on the mission, focused on You. Lead us not into temptation! Hosanna! Save us now! Amen.”

Closing Song: “Hosanna”